Blood Orchids (10 page)

Chapter 18

Puna was a rough town thirty minutes outside Hilo, near where the flows from Kilauea met the ocean. The town’s economy had been depressed ever since the lava had taken out entire subdivisions in the area in the 1990s. Built like a western town, false-fronted old wooden buildings faced a single main street.

At 9 p.m., when most of the rest of the island was shut up tight for the evening, Puna was just warming up. The doors of the bars and restaurants were open to the streets, light and music spilling out, knots of people clustered smoking outside.

Stevens pulled the SUV into one of the side streets and parked on the shoulder. Lei got out and slammed the door, straightening her jean jacket and unobtrusively checking the Glock in its holster. Stevens waited at the bumper as she bent to touch up her wide mouth with sparkly gloss in the side mirror of the Bronco, running the wand over her lips. She pretended not to notice him watching, feeling his eyes on her like a touch. She straightened abruptly, snapped the wand into the tube and slid it into the pocket of her jacket.

“Puna Music Club was Mary’s sort of home away from home,” she said. “She liked to eat there between her shift and class. I hope they’ll know something.” They strode down the street, through the groups of people. Electric guitars wailed from inside the bar.

Stevens pushed one of the old-fashioned swinging half doors open and held it as Lei followed him in. The smell of sweat and beer hit her along with a wall of sound as a mediocre rock band banged out tunes from the battered stage. The postage stamp dance floor was crowded with people. Lei elbowed her way next to Stevens at the bar, hopped up on a stool. Stevens got the bartender’s attention, ordered two beers, yelled above the din of the band.

“Have you seen Mary? Mary Gomes?”

The bartender flipped the tops off, pushed two green bottles of Heineken toward them.

“Yeah. Who wants to know?”

“We’re friends of hers from the police department.” Stevens showed his badge.

“She came in yesterday afternoon, ordered her usual. She must’ve got a call from someone and been picked up. She left her car in the alley.” The bartender wiped the counter as he talked.

“Has that happened before?” Stevens asked.

“Sure. Not a lot but at least a couple other times I know of,” the bartender said, polishing a glass. He moved off to wait on another customer. Stevens turned to Lei.

“Let’s go check it out.” She nodded, scooping up her beer. They went back out the front of the bar and around the corner of the building.

The Mustang gleamed in the dim light of the alley. They walked around the car, tried the handles. Locked. Guitar music leaked out of a door in the wall next to it.

“Mary would never just leave the Mustang here if she could help it.” Lei pointed to the alley door. “Wonder where this goes?” She gave the handle a turn—it was unlocked.

They went into a run-down hallway. Clearly this was the back way into the Puna Music Club. Loud voices identified the kitchen on the left, and they could see the women’s and men’s bathrooms on the right. Lei stuck her head into the restrooms but there was nothing to see but the well-used facilities.

“So what do you think?” Stevens leaned against the wall, took a sip of his beer.

“Don’t know. We should call her station, see if there were any emergency calls she might have had, though Roland said he checked on that. I think it’s really weird she left the Mustang here. That car was her pride and joy.”

“Yeah. But she could be meeting someone, someone she didn’t want Roland to know about.”

“That’s what Pono thought too. But I know she would be careful to be back before Roland noticed. Now he’s worried and upset. That’s only going to draw attention, embarrass her. No, something must have happened. She might have been nabbed in the alley.”

“Not too likely.” Stevens said. “But if she doesn’t turn up to claim the car, it looks like she’s missing for sure.”

“Do you think the hair the stalker sent me could be hers?” Lei put her fear into words. “I don’t know how long she’s been missing, I mean for sure yesterday, but I got the note the night before.”

Stevens shrugged. She could tell he was trying to be casual but his mouth had drawn into a hard line and black brows lowered so she could hardly see his eyes in the dim light of the tired bulb.

“Let’s find out,” he said. They pushed off from the wall and went back outside. It wasn’t long before they were on the road again.

“I’m starting to wonder if this is all connected somehow. The girls, the investigation, my stalker, Mary’s disappearance. . .” Lei leaned her forehead on the cool glass of the window.

“How? What’s the connection?” Stevens sounded serious.

“I don’t know. I think Mary would have told me if someone was stalking her, and she never said anything. I don’t know, I just feel it.”

“At this point we have to follow the evidence, track down every lead we can. Every hour that goes by the trail gets colder. I’m open to anything right now if you can find a link. In the meantime I’m calling this in.” Stevens picked up the handset radio and reported the abandoned car and their conversation with the bartender to the detective on duty at Puna PD. Stevens asked if there had been any emergency calls yesterday afternoon that Mary might have gone on. The dispatcher checked and said no, replied that a case was already open for Mary in Missing Persons.

“Looks like they’re moving on it,” he said, hanging up the handset and glancing at Lei. “I’m sorry.”

She rolled down the window and stared out, lifting her face to the arc of night sky. A million stars circled far above, visible without the light pollution of Hilo. The cool evening air blew across her face, anchoring her in her body. She didn’t let herself think about the Mohuli`i girls’ drowned faces but they hovered at the edge of her mind, unforgettable.

* * *

He watched her wake up with the dawn, the drugs he’d given her slowly wearing off. They were in the special place he’d prepared, so remote she could scream all she wanted and no one would hear. A trackless jungle of tall ohia trees and gigantic ferns surrounded them. Her hands were cuffed behind her, and a heavy cable attached to the handcuffs fastened her to a nearby tree.

Terror and rage came into her eyes as Mary realized where she was, and she thrashed against her bonds. He sat on the plastic cooler and watched as she struggled, finally subsiding, sucking air through her nostrils above the gag.

“I don’t have time for you now,” he said. “I have to go to work.” His voice was muffled by the ski mask he wore, his alter ego. He hadn’t decided if he was going to kill her yet, and it kept his options open.

She glared at him and he could see her calculating whether or not she could take him.

Oh, this was good. He wanted it to last.

The first fingers of light pinkened the sky above the hidden grove where he had set up the shelter. He stood, looking down at her.

“You’re going to enjoy what I have planned for you. Water’s in the cooler.” He leaned over, pinched her nipple. She writhed and heaved, trying to kick him, and he chuckled as he walked away, crunching through the dried ferns.

He smiled to himself, pulling the hot ski mask off his head with a pleasurable sense of anticipation. She was secure, but she would figure out how to get her hands in front because he’d left her cuffs loose enough. Eventually she’d get thirsty enough to drink the water. He was counting on it.

Chapter 19

Lei poured her first coffee of the morning and splashed in some half-and-half from the carton. She looked out the window over the sink at the spreading branches of the plumeria tree, spare graceful branches ending in clusters of creamy yellow-throated flowers, bouquets of tropical fragrance. A cardinal hopped in the branches, an unlikely spot of red.

Her head felt muzzy but she’d only had the one beer the night before in Puna. She looked over at Stevens. He’d put the cushions from the rump-sprung couch on the floor. They’d migrated during the night, leaving him sprawled on the floor, the crocheted afghan tangled around his legs.

She tried not to notice the contours of his back under the tank-style undershirt, the long ropy muscles of his arms relaxed in sleep. His rumpled dark hair made her hands itch to touch it. Keiki padded over to him and licked his ear, and he woke with a groan.

“Coffee,” he intoned, sitting up and lurching like a zombie as he headed toward the pot, hoisting up sweatpants. His hair was spiky and eyes a dark, sleepy blue. She laughed, handed him a full mug. He took it, rubbing his lower back.

“Sleeping on the floor is making me feel like an old man.”

“Quit whining. Pretty boys like you are such babies.”

“Pretty boy? Did I detect a compliment in there somewhere?” He blew on the hot surface of the coffee. “Can’t say I remember ever being called that before.” He took a sip. She felt his proximity like a magnetic field, raising the tiny hairs on her arms with awareness.

“You’re so vain, you just want me to say it again.” Her face flamed. She dug in the utility drawer for Keiki’s leash.

I’m so bad at this, she thought, but all thought stopped as his arms came around her from behind. He turned her and then, in slow motion, he leaned down, his lips brushing hers as gentle as a moth landing.

She went rigid, her lips closed, the reaction instinctive. He looked down at her, stepped back, let go. Turned away. Picked up his coffee and took a sip. She let her breath out with a shaky whoosh, turned away to rinse her mug at the sink. His voice, when he spoke, was deliberately casual.

“As far as today, I’m hoping the search warrant on the Reynolds house comes through. I could use some help on that if it does.”

“Sure.” Lei made certain her voice was as even as his. He’d almost kissed her—and freak that she was, she’d made him back off. She wished he’d try again, but now wasn’t the time. “What do you think about Mary?”

“I think she’s endangered missing, if she didn’t turn up last night. Check in with the detective on her case. Dispatcher said his name is Lono Smith.”

“Sounds like a plan. I can’t stand to think something’s happened to her.”

“So far there’s no sign of foul play. We just have to go through the steps. Try not to think the worst.”

He put his mug in the sink, pulled on one of her corkscrew curls, stretching it out and watching it spring back, smiling at her somber face. Moving slowly, he put his fingers under her chin and rubbed the ball of his thumb across her lower lip. A tingle zipped down her spine, weakening her knees as he picked up his duffel and headed for the door. “I’ll give you a call later.”

“Okay.” She followed him. “I want to get a hair sample of Mary’s and compare it to what the stalker sent.”

“Good idea.” He turned. “Hey, get me a futon or something for tonight, would you?”

Lei opened her mouth to argue, and he put his fingers over it gently, leaning in close. There were tiny flecks of green in his blue eyes.

“Humor me,” he said softly. “Please.”

Struck dumb, she closed the door behind him.

Guilt smote her—how could she be thinking about kissing with her friend missing, and two girls dead?

Lei and Keiki did their run, and as she was buttoning into her uniform her cell rang.

“Come over to the Reynolds’ house. The warrant came through. I’m bringing Pono in too.” Stevens was all business.

“On my way,” Lei said. She drove to the Reynolds’ house with its elegant carriage lamps and manicured lawn. Stevens’s SUV was in the driveway. Jeremy met her at the door.

“The parents left when we got here and served the warrant. It’s a good thing. It’s easier to work with them out of the way.”

“How’d Reynolds take it?” Lei asked.

“Badly,” Jeremy said, leading them into the living room where Stevens was lifting the cushions up on the couch, looking beneath them with a flashlight.

“Reynolds left pretty angry, said he was going to get his lawyer. I’d like to be out of here before they get back,” Stevens said, pointing to a box of latex gloves.

Pono walked in as Lei snapped on a pair of gloves and helped herself to some evidence bags.

“What’re we looking for?”

“Not sure,” he said. “Anything to link him to the two girls, the campsite. I figure we’ll know it when we see it.”

Even with the four of them searching it was slow work. They went through every drawer, every closet, every box. Lei felt a stifling squeeze in her chest as she went into Kelly’s room.

The pretty blonde teenager’s presence had been erased. The bedroom had been stripped of her belongings and made over into a guest room. Lei lifted the tropical print coverlet, shook out the pillow shams, opened the closet. Pink plastic hangers rattled in the space. She pulled out the wardrobe drawers. Empty.

I know where her clothes went—in the trash. What a weird way to grieve—poor kid. She saw the girl’s face again in her mind’s eye, part of her nose gone, blue eyes shadows behind puffy lids. Lei pinched herself to stay in the present moment, sitting back on the bed.

Stevens came to the door. “Anything?”

“No. Totally cleaned out. Looks like they’re making this into a guest room.” She gestured to the faux rattan headboard and orchid-print drapes.

Just then Jeremy called, “Come see this!”

They went into the den, where Jeremy had been searching the computer. He swiveled the flat-screen monitor so they could see pictures of Kelly.

She was wearing the ruffled yellow skirt Lei remembered from the evidence room, sitting with her legs open. Jeremy clicked to the next photo. She was naked. Her flaxen hair was spread over small breasts, her hand over her mound. Her eyes shone with misery. More pictures, each progressively more seductive, and her eyes more glazed. The background was the oatmeal-colored couch in the living room.

The last picture was of Kelly and Haunani naked, lying facing each other in the green grass beside a stream. The composition was beautiful, the colors rich—and the subject matter haunting and terrible.

“Holy shit!” Pono exclaimed. “This motherfucker just had these pictures sitting on his desktop? He was just asking to get busted!”

“I broke his encryption,” Jeremy said. “It wasn’t too complicated. This file is called ‘baby photos’ and I knew he never had any babies, so I checked it.”

“I think we got him,” Stevens said. Lei turned away and went back to Kelly’s room. She felt dizzy. She turned on the special vacuum with its evidence collection bag, sucking any fibers out of the carpet. Bile seemed to be pressing up in her throat and she gulped it back, gripping the vacuum hard. Get a grip, she told herself, and felt hysterical laughter threaten.

Her cell rang. It was Irene at Dispatch.

“This is your reminder call. You have counseling today at two p.m., and it’s one-forty-five. I thought you might forget. I know you guys are out searching the Reynolds place.”

“Shit,” Lei said, ripping the vacuum cord out of the wall. “This is not a good time!”

“When is it ever?” Irene said cheerfully. “Say thank you for the reminder, or I’ll give you a graveyard shift.”

“Thanks, Irene. Are you sure I can’t reschedule?”

“Mandatory means mandatory. You ask me, you got off light so no mess with the Lieutenant on this.”

“Shit,” she said again. “Okay. Thanks.” She clicked the phone closed. “Stevens, I need to go back to the station.”

They were still clustered around the computer as she came back in, the vacuum bag in hand. Pono turned to her.

“What for? We’re in the middle of something.”

“That damn mandatory counseling.”

“Bad timing,” Stevens said. “I need you here.”

“If you guys weren’t just getting your jollies looking at the dead girls, we might be getting more done,” she snapped. All three of them stared at her.

“Unplug the computer and we’ll take the whole thing down to the station,” Stevens said to Jeremy. He looked at Lei. “I think you better go get that counseling.”

Fury and shame clogged her throat. She dropped the evidence bag and left, the screen door banging behind her.

It took her the whole drive to the station to calm down. She knew her response to the search was irrational, knew it had to do with her past. As usual, knowing didn’t help. She took some deep breaths and put her hand in her pocket, feeling the triangular corner of Stevens’s note. Asshole, she thought, glad they hadn’t kissed but wishing they had. Wishing she could get the images of the girls out of her mind. Wishing she was normal.

She parked the Crown Vic and went into the industrial beige women’s room, splashing water on her face and making sure her hair was under control. She touched up with lipgloss and brushed some lint off her uniform.

“I look fine,” she said out loud. “Not remotely psycho.”